Tempting Fate
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: Summary: This very short story was inspired by "Fate".


Tempting Fate  
  
Summary: This very short story was inspired by "Fate".  
  
Disclaimer: Gary Hobson, of course, is not my creation. No copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made.  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller  
  
Author's Note: Some of the dialogue that appears in this story is not my own, but was written by the writer of that episode.  
  
E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail.com  
  
Tempting Fate  
  
He limped towards the waiting ambulance as the hornet of reporters directed questions at him. He did not answer. He saw a sea of faces, mostly of people he did not know. The onlookers fixed their gazes upon him and marveled how lucky he was to have survived his ordeal.  
  
Today was the day that he was supposed to die.  
  
But he didn't. Why? Why had he been able to tempt Fate and emerge victorious?  
  
Tomorrow doesn't exist. For those who embrace religious beliefs in a Supreme Being, Fate or the future is the domain of a higher authority. They know that mere mortals have no control over what may happen in the future. The most a person can do is to treasure each day because there can only ever be now...that precise moment in time.  
  
But what if the mere mortal is a guy who is entrusted with the power to change the future, to circumvent Fate, because he gets tomorrow's newspaper today?  
  
And what if Fate had already predetermined, via his obituary in the newspaper, that he was supposed to die? Would Fate be tempting him, dangling his mortality in front of him and then challenging him to change the future, his future? Or, would he not be given the choice?  
  
Today was the day that he was supposed to die.  
  
Yet, this day had started out as a typical day; well, as typical a day he could expect when his wake up calls were a meow and a thump signaling the arrival of his early edition.  
  
He had time to effectuate his early saves and even enjoy a date at the planetarium. His next save was in the afternoon. He had to prevent an apartment fire caused by a boiler room explosion. Simple. All he had to do was to shut down the boiler. He never expected the boiler room to be padlocked. He pulled the fire alarm and quickly ushered  
  
the residents out of the apartment building . He draped a blanket over the young mother's shoulders and handed her the bottle for her baby. Outside the apartment building, he surveyed his handiwork and smiled. Everyone was safe. He removed the paper from his jeans. His smile evaporated and was transformed into fear as he read the new headline "Apartment Fire Kills 1." He hurried back inside determined to save the homeless man who had taken shelter in the storage shed on the roof. A thunderous boom knocked him off of his feet as he made his way up the stairs. He located the man. Jeremiah. Jeremiah was so jumpy.  
  
Smoke had already engulfed the stairwell. They needed to get off of the roof. He found a ladder and used the ladder to create a makeshift bridge connecting to a nearby building. He told Jeremiah that he would crawl over first then he would talk Jeremiah across. As he slowly made his way across the ladder, he fought a wave of dizziness triggered by a fear of heights that had plagued him ever since he was a child and he got stuck in a tree house. He finally made it across. He removed the paper from the back pocket of his jeans- "Apartment Fire Kills 1" the headline still screamed. Defiantly, he counseled Jeremiah. "Put the boot in your pocket...go slowly...don't look down....you look right at me...don't you look down." He encouraged. He was determined to cheat Fate.  
  
But Fate would not be cheated. Perhaps there was an Oracle laughing at him, making him believe that Fate would give into temptation for just as Jeremiah had almost made it across, the man began to slip. He tried holding on to Jeremiah's hand but he felt the hand slipping from his grasp. He watched in horror as Jeremiah plummeted to his death.  
  
Maybe Fate is another word for failure.  
  
A bar, not his own, became his haven as he attempted to drown his guilt, his failure by liquor.  
  
He lay awake all night that night. And the next morning when the paper came, he refused to do its bidding. Guilt consumed him. He had failed to save a life. He didn't want the paper anymore.  
  
He attended Jeremiah's funeral. He didn't really understand why he had to come, but he knew that he had to be there. And when he apologized to Jeremiah's sister, he knew that she didn't understand the depths of his apology, but he needed to utter the words out loud, to say "I'm sorry."  
  
He never expected to see his obituary in the paper. Maybe it was what he had coming. Maybe it was his punishment for failing to save Jeremiah.  
  
The obituary made no mention as to why he had gone to that abandoned carpet store. And a morbid curiosity gripped him causing him to visit that carpet store, the place where the paper said that he would die.  
  
He returned to McGinty's and wrote a letter to his lawyer leaving his half of the bar to Marissa. Then he went into the office to call his parents, to say goodbye...well, he couldn't say goodbye, but he could tell them that he loved them and that he missed them. He dialed the number. The mechanical sound of Mom's voice momentarily confused him before he realized that it was the answering machine. He left a message. He told Mom that he missed she and Dad and that he loved them.  
  
He left McGinty's and soaked in the sights of Chicago for one last time. He saw an old man, the same old man that had approached him at the cemetery, waiting for a traffic light. The old man stared at him knowingly. He called out to the man, but the man continued walking at a brisk pace. He ran after the man, his pursuit determined, his legs as heavy as lead, and his mind carrying enormous guilt. The journey led him to the carpet store. He saw from across the street a teenage couple, seeking shelter from the cold, about to enter the carpet store. He called out to the couple, but they didn't hear him. He started to walk away, to walk away from Death, but images of the doomed teenage victims killed in the collapse, assaulted his mind and forced him to hurry across the street and inside the carpet store. He told them to leave as the structure started to collapse. The teenagers got out safely, but he was buried underneath the rubble.  
  
Maybe it was easy waiting to die, but not so easy choosing to live. He was able to pull himself out from underneath the rubble, but his body and spirit were battered.  
  
The old man appeared to him along with a strange glow that had illuminated the darkness. The man told him that if wanted to go on he needed to learn to accept the responsibility and the loss. The choice was his.  
  
"Why? I didn't ask for it. I don't want it. Do you know what it's like to wake up every morning and know what's going to happen? I don't want to know. And I don't want to care. I just want to wake up one morning and not know. Please." He pleaded, before the floodgates to his guilt and sorrow over Jeremiah's death opened and he was finally able to cry.  
  
"Count the living, not the dead." The old man challenged. "Count the living."  
  
Those words instilled him with the will to fight for his life as he called for the rescue team to free him from the sub-basement of the carpet store.  
  
The hero continued limping towards the ambulance. Fate may have tempted him with death today, but he was more determined to live...to see tomorrow.  
  
The End. 


End file.
